Songs To Live By
by Pippin4242
Summary: A snapshot of the lives of a handful of characters, viewed through the coloured glass of Kubo Tite's theme music. Guessing who each entry's about wins you peanuts, and strokes my ego.
1. Por Una Cabeza

**Por Una Cabeza**

He tangoes through life in a whirl of flowers and silk. There is no fruit he has not tasted, no flower he has not seen swaying in the springtime breeze, yet always he finds something new to take into his heart. He will not act his age, and he is full of beauty. A hundred times a hundred mornings he has woken with a splitting headache and a bitter taste in his mouth, knowing that the one he loves has tossed him aside. Yet it would be madness not to take a chance on further heartbreak for the heady rush of love he has felt before and knows he will feel again.

He loves them all, and wants to sweep them up into his arms and protect them. It sweetens his blade to fight for a woman, and he is able to find fresh happiness in battle.

He is a flirt, and all the women know it. They take him at face value, slap him soundly with their fans and send him home, but every time he pursues a woman, it is because he has fallen in love. Sometimes with several different women over the course of a single day. He will give anything for the latest woman to say she loves him back, and knows cheerfully that before the week is out he will be destroyed. Every time his heart is broken he swears off women, love, and life, but when the latest raven-haired beauty fresh from the academy saunters past and acknowledges him with the slightest glance, what choice does he have? He is powerless before the fire of her lips, the curved blade of her body, and she becomes yet another fruit which he must taste for himself.

There is no gamble in life not worth taking, he thinks, and why not?


	2. Je Chante Pour Passer Le Temps

**Je Chante Pour Passer Le Temps**

This man lives in solitude, closeted splendour. He is calm and measured in his every word and action, and he is always right. Though his workload is large, he is efficient and capable, sharp as the frozen leaves of plants in winter, and thus he spends long hours idle. Subtle and elegant, he always positions himself in the right place at the right time. He is not a man who will ever have to rush.

Despite first appearances, his temprament hides tenderness, and indeed the full range of emotions available to man. Perhaps since he keeps those tender embers of feeling so well buried they will burn even more brightly on the few occasions when he finds himself no longer able to cover them.

He speaks little, that he might keep his soul under tight, beautiful control. There are dark undercurrents within this man, masked always by the trappings of refinement and grace. Sometimes he fears that he will be dragged away into the depths of his own empty seething rage. From time to time the very brave or foolhardy will speak behind his back, likening his blood to snow-broth. He permits them the pleasure of their small taunts.

And while he still draws breath they will never be permitted to realise that it was that very snow-broth which destroyed a raging fire.


	3. Idioteque

_Songfic drabbles: now with added beta! This chapter is dedicated to tasteslikemiso for her invaluable advice and contributions_**.  
**

**Idioteque**

Ridiculous, really, this outmoded concept of chivalry. This society rewards chance with glory, ignorance with acclaim, brutality with power. He is the last of the children, following an outmoded way of life that in his heart he still truly believes in. People don't understand him, but those of his sort have always chosen to set themselves aside from the chaos of everyday living. There is no sense to this existence! Yet still he continues, though he isn't sure why. Perhaps he is obliged to protect the memories handed down to him. Is that all he has become? A vessel? He retains these fragments of the past that would otherwise be forgotten, and he traces the words with his mind so that he too will not forget (cannot forget) these truths, the history that has been written in the blood of his predecessors.

He has to be alone, because there is nobody in the world who could understand him. His eccentricity, he supposes, stems from this knowledge and acceptance. When he seems cold, it is because he is unraveling the mystery of conversation. Bit by bit, they chip away at him, though he doesn't see it yet. He needs drama to make himself understand. Danger, bravado- these only serve to reinforce the truth.

Really, he knew all along that he was living a lie. He just needed somewhere to pin his fear, his hatred, and his self-loathing. A cowering fool, he had been, and he had to outgrow that before he could admit to himself his true path, throwing upon the fire all that had been before. It had made him selfish. Sometimes he forgets that others have felt pain and abandonment the same- or even worse- than his own. After all, his isolation is, to a certain extent, self-imposed.

Critically, analytically, dryly, he continues upon the well-trodden path, with a clear head and trembling hands.


	4. Stray Dog

**Stray Dog**

Life's hard but he's alive. Tense muscle under rough, flea-chewed hide as he jumps from building to building, ignorant of the human dramas played out in heated homes beneath his sure footsteps. Here he knows no frustration, no collar nor hand of man. Alone, under the stars, and fueled by the stirring in his loins at the sight of the moon rising over this, his world.

Rain splatters his face, makes the tiles slippery, but his whole life has been a fight and he won't look down at his feet, even now. Bounding and leaping onwards, higher, towards the sky where his heart can be at rest, each time he falls to earth and rushes forwards again. He has forgotten where he was headed, his hair whipping against his face as it falls about his shoulders, but he doesn't give a shit. It's all about the chase right now. None of you would understand. Get back, he's dangerous tonight!

There are others, who come and go. You cannot rely on them. Still, companionship is an ideal, and he dreams yet of the girl beside him, her body cooling fast in the night air, and he wonders if they will ever share those tight defended spaces again.

No love! No chains. He will never be a pawn but a player, the master of his freedom, driven by the wind. Baring his teeth to those he longs to share his meat with, a lone dog, howling at the moon.


	5. Mou Aoi Tori wa Tobanai

**The Blue Bird Flies No More**

The image is fixed in her mind, and even now she wonders if he recalls it as clearly as she can, clear water fresh from the well of memory. The river, rising and falling at their feet in slow, deliberate breaths, and the orange light spilling about them, bathing them in its dreamlike glow. Before them, the town was laid out as if it were painted. She had known with her whole soul, then, that she wanted to protect the child before her, so that he would never suffer again as he did in that beautiful, ruined moment.  
These days though, she wonders how it was that she never came to realise that she had been a child herself, and just as small and defenseless as he. Little fledgelings, barely out of the nest.  
He was different, now. Larger, leaner. They all were. Everybody was moving around so fast, changing and growing, their voices deepening, changing their hair, their faces. Shedding their down for flight feathers. It was as if she was trapped on a traffic island, and her old companions were the cars, zipping in and out of her sight, a constant blur that made her head ache.  
Was that really all? Did that feeling have to stay confined to the past tense? The river still flows. The town is strong, its veins flowing with traffic, and its towers reaching for the sky. Every day, the sun rises and falls.  
But could he ever be strong enough to cry in front of her again?  
She cradles the moment in her arms, a broken bird which she fears will never again fly into that orange sunset.


	6. No Song Unheard

**No Song Unheard**

Maybe everyone feels that way sometimes.

Maybe he'll ask some time.

Do you ever look back at yourself? Like an old projector left in the garage, covered in dust and home to spiders, memories aren't so far away, and it's no work to get them running again. But there's no doubt that the guy on the flickering filmstrip of your flashing past just isn't you. He's a dick - there's no two ways about it. He's just some waster who's got no idea what he's been given. Look at him now, hands in his pockets, kicking that dented can down the street. What a fucking cliche, right? Maybe it isn't everyone, after all. Maybe it's just him. What a _dick_.

What he had back then. They say you'd give anything to get another five minutes with someone you love who's gone. He doesn't doubt that, but look at how they spent their time when they were together. Why, he'd give his right arm to have his family together again, but he'd probably mess it all up, like he did first time. No, he wasn't even a dick. That's too exalted a title. The boy he was back then isn't even worth insulting. He was just... a waste.

But those ears worked okay. And those fists worked okay, and turns out he did know how to stop hitting. And those eyes, which had forgotten how to cry. Turns out they worked okay too.

Everything he had now, he owed to one man.

It could have been a lot worse, right Grandfather?


	7. News From The Front

**News from the Front**

What kind of retard risks their life for a stranger?

It's a good question, really. But there are better questions, he realises these days - like, how many strangers have got to die before it's a big deal to you? When did murder become routine? And how can anybody talk about this stuff as if it just happens every day? Sure, it's true that people die every minute. But even one death can rend the centre from your very universe, sending you spiraling in the wrong direction for the rest of your life. Nobody's a statistic once you've seen what death does to people.

The men and women on the other side of death know exactly what goes on on the flip side of the coin. They do what they can, but saving lives is their day-job. The things that actually matter to them are just like any living man's problems - that cute girl from the fifth who gives you a little smile every morning as you pass her headquarters on the way to save human lives. Who's going to pick up the booze for tonight when the guys meet up after work, where they save human lives. Whether you can get your shift swapped with that seventeenth seated guy so that you can get a day off, from saving human lives. In a way they're even blinder to the truth of matters than the humans who can neither see nor touch their encroaching ghostly fates.

Who's listening? Who's ready for the battles to come? Who's going to save them all?

Charging headlong into fights he knows he cannot hope to win, he'll fight the decisions of gods with the tools of a mortal.


	8. Back to the Innocence

**Back to the Innocence**

It's been a fine life. Whoever would have thought it could stretch so far? Men and women far more deserving of this great bounty of his have already fallen long by the wayside. It's important to him not to take that too lightly. Each day must be held heavy in cupped hands, as the glimmering sand of his years slips on and on, glorious sunsets and days watching the waves and afternoons holding hands stretching back and back for decades. It's a shame that the younger ones don't understand that about him, seeing his pleasure in small things as foolhardiness, or naïve impulse. This calm joy is the product of a life lived so long close to death; both the funerals of too many comrades, and the knowledge of his own mortality, which might have hung over a weaker man as a sentence.

His body is strong; given his status, it ought to be. And yet it is weak. His eyesight is keen, and his muscles powerful, but it's a house of cards, and the slightest unlucky breeze can tear the ground away from his feet, and throw billowing shadows across his vision, leaving him at the mercy of the demons he battles. But even on days when his body fails him, and he is confined to his chambers, he stays close to the little window, listening to the petty fights of his division members, and the trout leaping in the sun-blessed lake. On these days he hopes most of all to hear the shouts of children. Wouldn't it be _grand_ to have some for himself! Such a shame, as they used to say over his head, such a shame that he'll never be able to. They'd never expected him to live so long in the first place.

He's learned now to ignore everybody else's predictions and warnings. He knows his own body, and he'll be ready when the time comes. A life fully lived, not just through himself, but through his writing, his fighting, and the many, many boys and girls he has trained. Some of whom, even now, he knows he will outlive. And it is that fact alone which ever makes him feel his age.


	9. L'Arlesienne Suite 2

**The Girl From Arles, Part Two  
**

There's sun on the back of his neck as he crows his story to the world. Strange currents stir around him; messages that he isn't fully equipped to understand. The fur of his coat tickles his jaw, and he feels a strange tension in his chest today, as he readies himself for battle. Unperturbed, he shouts into the sky, and the people below recognise his call on a primal level, and respond in joy.

It's not a battle that everybody would recognise or understand, but he puts a great price on every clash in his struggle. His reputation is as important as his life, for it feeds him every day, and if there's a playfulness to his combat, then there's also a masked, athletic grandeur. The fight of a man who cannot afford to lose. Who will do terrible things if it keeps people's eyes on him.

He's not a bad person; he just spins on a separate axis, moves to a different beat than everybody else.

Watch him twirl!


	10. Veni, Veni, Yahoo!

_Please allow me a little artistic license; try as I might, I couldn't find the lyrics to Yahoo! anywhere, and it's just too fast for me to translate by ear, so I only used the sound of the song to guide me. For all I know, it's about violent, bloody death. ^^;_

* * *

**Come, Come, Oh Come  
**

She lives by his grace alone, and knows better his body than any other. The hot energy rushing through his body beneath her, the blood of his enemies splashing them like warm sea-spray. He is the purest, the bloodiest of all people she has met. It's impossible to imagine a time in which they will not be one. Through everything they have come, never split for more than a few hours from the very second they met. The red of the rose and the white of its roots, they shine brighter than any of the people around them, who are mere insects when compared with his great glory.

How brilliant, to be a part of that!  
**  
Yahoo!**

Life, the exciting game! Maybe later there will be sweets. Maybe they'll go and see the fish!

Wherever she goes, there are friends to make, and fun to be had! The world is so wide, and the sky so blue. Who _cares_ where it is that they're running to?

It's enough that they're running!


End file.
